Alpine hymns and Danish ‘humour’

The hills are alive with the Sound of Europe – or at least they tried to be last week in Salzburg, where EU leaders and assorted thinker-types engaged in some Alpine navel-gazing on that perennial brain-teaser, What Is Europe?

It has something to do with Mozart, apparently and that’s the connection the Austrian presidency tried to make as it hosted the event. The two-day conference included panels with titles such as “The European crisis: a sad sound?” or “Conducting Europe”. Naturally, Europe’s papers respond with musical metaphors.

The Irish Times titled its report “EU leaders not singing from same Salzburg hymn sheet”. The Financial Times heard a “Silence of Europe” affecting the group during a video with citizens’ complaints about Europe that was lacking a soundtrack.

The FT also quotes Dominique Moisi of the French Institute of International Affairs saying “that the sound of Europe may become the sound of a banging door, the one that is brutally closed in the face of all those who are not yet members of the club”.

Other media consider the fallout from a controversy pitting Arab nations against Denmark. Muslims are upset about some cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that appeared in Danish papers and are now urging boycotts of products from Denmark (presumably they were already not buying too many of those delicious pork ribs).

Austria’s Die Presse thinks the caricatures should not have been published. “The fact that our society has got as far as tolerating making fun of the Christian religion does not necessarily require us to demand that Muslims should do the same with their religion,” it writes.

Sweden’s Expressen says the front-page apology published in Danish, English and Arabic by Jyllands-Posten “sends out unpleasant signals that threats work”. The Swedes think the Danes’ “retreat-like humming and hawing is simply an unpleasant confirmation that fundamentalist threats – against individuals, against economic and political interests – win through”. This may be true, but it’s also easy to say when you don’t have a fatwa on your office.

Then there is the political uncertainty vexing the EU after Hamas’s victory in last week’s Palestinian elections.

France’s Le Figaro describes the meeting of foreign ministers at which the EU considered continuation of financial support to the Palestinian Authority with the headline: “Europe spells out its conditions to Hamas.”

Libération allows that “refusing to participate indirectly in the destruction of Israel” by funding the policy of Hamas “is an undisputable requirement of democratic diplomacy”. But it also thinks that pushing Hamas “towards a radical policy and into the arms of [psychopathic Iranian president] Ahmadinejad may durably jeopardise appeasement in the Middle East”.

Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians “are not the main reason why the group was elected,” Libé says, adding that many of its members and supporters are in favour of a “truce” and “quasi-peaceful coexistence with Israel”.